Meghann Gearing

I've suffered from absence seizures ever since I was a baby. It's a form of epilepsy which makes me lose all awareness of my surroundings for a short time.

From the outside, I look like I'm staring into space and daydreaming, but on the inside, it's as if my brain has just turned off for a while. Afterwards, I feel muddled and confused.

It makes it very hard when you're in school or college, as you unexpectedly lose whole chunks of classes or conversations, and might miss half of an important question or answer.

I think that absence seizures aren't well enough known or understood by teachers, so I hope that my poster will help them to understand that students like me aren't just daydreaming or being rude if we stare into space without reacting - or if we don't know the answers that we should.

It's hard to follow a lesson when you keep missing big chunks of what’s going on.